This array of whomping exotica reflects its creator's appetite for any Third World dance movement he can get his ears on, including such new ones on me as kuduro, barefoot, and -- from the mysterious depths of the District of Columbia -- Moombahton​!

The finest lyricist to rise up out of conscious country since Miranda Lambert, if not Bobby Pinson himself.

She raps better now, shaping her breathy little-girl pout into vulnerability and defiance as circumstances dictate, which often means simultaneously. She rhymes better too.

They add muscle to their sound and lose a smidgen of edge in their writing.

This one-off EP with singer-songwriter cum symphonist Sufjan Stevens and semiclassical drum'n'bassmaker Son Lux is different, because the primary function of his raps is to ground the beautiful musics his collaborators contribute.

It's less surefire than Culdesac. But it's more satisfying emotionally.

Less dynamic and more ruminative than The Ruminant Band, here are 10 songs and a poky instrumental for country hippies manque and other shaggy folk down on the little luck they ever had.

Excoriating as Burnett and Hill are, the real abrasive is Flatlander.

This doesn't rock, and it shouldn't. But it rollicks, skanks, and two-steps just fine.

He surveys his doubt-ridden world with uneasy resolve and disillusioned, self-deprecating wit.

After I got over my high I began to feel the rest of the album was a letdown, but far from it--just lesser variations on his trick of deploying short samples as beats without settling for staccato. Kind of like in rock and roll even if you'd never know it to listen to it--only to think about it.

The way his heedless old songs liberate cautious young professionals lays to rest any doubts as to whether he belongs in the same pantheon as George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin. He just bequeathed us a smaller book.

Between speed of delivery and brevity of line, Sandman's nonstop tunefulness here tends jingly no matter how gritty his flow.

Vocally, duet partners from 41-year-old Alison Krauss to 86-year-old Ray Price outdo themselves keeping the young powerhouse in check‑-only on the ill-advised showcase does Johnson get to show off.

Their synthbeat-meets-comi​x concept got over as pop because it found a mildly playful and pleasurable way to enact well-meaning self-effacement.

These 13 excellent songs are sufficiently specialized to make you realize how classic Volume 1 was--and what a theme statement "Past Time" was.

The catch is that through all her generalizations it soon becomes clear that she needs that guy much more than a postmodern girl is supposed to. Too bad she can't pin it down and also can't pin him down. I blame the weed.

Anticon minimalist Odd Nosdam provides all the beats Geti needs, and when your mind wanders, quite often the music alone carries you along.

Conceive it as DJ electronica that makes its point, starting all partial and halting before gathering itself to a properly modest climax. Except that it's played by a live band. And has OK lyrics. Smart, nothing‑-pretty darned intelligent.

Musically, this is pop without shame‑-her hookiest and most dance-targeted album.

As they add the quaver of age to Andy Gill's slashes and modernize Jon King's animadversions with cellphone photos, comparison with the 20-year-old Mall quickly reveals how blessed the mainstays are in drummer Mark Heaney, who in the great tradition of Marky Ramone has both the musical sense to respect Hugo Burnham's simplicity and the historical savvy not to attempt an anachronistic replication.

Saigon don't play. He's a social realist and a realist moralist who makes his seriousness work for him.

Give it its long chance and you'll find that Cohen's sense of humor alive and kicking from the first words.

Amusing though he and his yelp can be, I like him best when anxiety is a mood rather than a subject.

She's slightly slower and considerably more melodramatic, as is only appropriate. Other times the melodrama appears merely the organic outcome of a larger-than-life voice.

With an American bassist on half the tracks and a German drummer doubling Bombino's own guy half the time too, this is the hardest-rocking of the hard-traveling Tuareg guitarist's three distinct albums.

As fresh as Lisa Lee at the top of the key.

The hoarse, throaty voice knows its consonants, and the lyrics are full of the everyday breakdowns most of us survive into midlife and beyond.